New Menu for Desktop Google Maps

If you like Google Maps' mobile apps for Android and iOS, there's a good news: the desktop site now has a similar interface. The search box has a small icon for directions and another icon for the navigation menu, which lets you enable layers for satellite imagery, traffic, transit, bicycling, terrain, use My Maps, share maps, print maps and more.

The new hamburger-style menu adds features that were previously scattered in at least 4 other places: 2 menus at the bottom of the page, a satellite thumbnail and the search box.

Here's the old interface: the "getting around" card for layers, a small thumbnail for switching to satellite imagery (still available in the new UI), a help menu and a gear menu for sharing maps, Google Web History and search settings.

Another change is that you can switch to the lite mode, which replaces the old Google Maps:

Google Removes Reading Level Filter

Last month, Google removed search filters for visited page. Now it's time for a new advanced search feature to be removed: reading level. This feature was introduced back in 2010 to let you find search results that are better suited for you. "Sometimes you may want to limit your search results to a specific reading level. For instance, a junior high school teacher looking for content for her students or a second-language learner might want web pages written at a basic reading level. A scientist searching for the latest findings from the experts may want to limit results to those at advanced reading levels," explained Google.

In February, I noticed that the reading level feature had a bug and no longer allowed you to restrict results to "advanced reading level" pages. Instead of fixing the bug, Google removed yet another advanced search feature.

Reading level is no longer available in the search tools dropdown or in the advanced search page. Verbatim is the only remaining filtering option and I'm sure it will be removed soon. Hopefully, Google won't remove time filters, which are more popular and easier to understand.

Here are some screenshots from last month:

Celebrating 10 Years of YouTube

Cross-posted from the YouTube Trends Blog

On April 23, 2005, history was made. An 18-second clip about how cool elephants are was shot at the San Diego Zoo and uploaded to a then-private video sharing site called YouTube.

That May, YouTube launched in beta before becoming available to the wider public six months later. Ten years have now passed, and that site has grown to become not just the biggest video platform on the web—a community of more than one billion people, where hundreds of millions of hours of video are watched and billions of views are generated every day —but one of the largest and most diverse collections of self-expression in history.

YouTube is a portrait of our global culture, seen through the lenses and perspectives of people around the world. It is a portrait built by a creative community of bold and fearless individuals. Built by comedians, gamers, activists, artists, performers, teachers, and pranksters. Built with cats and rainbows and blenders and ninjas and unicorns. It was built on the silly. It was built on the profound. It was built by you.

And 10 years in, you continue to redefine how the world experiences music, entertainment, and news. How the world laughs and how the world learns. How we shape political events and how we connect over the things we love.

You’ve helped turn creators into the biggest names in entertainment. You’ve given people opportunities to share their voice and talent no matter where they are from or what their age or point of view. You built a world where little ideas can bring about amazing things and where amazing things can bring little delights to each of us.

So in honor of our 10th birthday, we’re celebrating you, our YouTube community. Every day over the next 26 days, we’ll take a look back at some of the most memorable moments, from the silly to the profound, that you’ve shared on YouTube in the last 10 years. It’s YouTube from A to Z. Literally.

You can follow our celebration throughout the month of May on our YouTube Trends blog.

Google Flights Uses Material Design

Google Flights, one of the most underrated Google services, has a new interface powered by Material Design. There's a new hamburger-style menu that lets you quickly find your saved flights, explore a clever map with potential destinations, change currency and language.

Google shows the best flights at the top of the list of results. "We chose these itineraries to give you the best trade-off between price, duration, number of stops, and sometimes other factors such as amenities and baggage fees," informs Google.

This video from 2014 shows the old interface:

{ Thanks, Emanuele Bartolomucci. }

Classic Google Maps, Replaced by Lite Mode

If you're using the new Google Maps for desktop and you're trying to switch to the old version, Google now sends you to Google Maps Lite Mode. "To make Maps load faster, you can use a version of Google Maps called Lite mode. In Lite mode, some features are turned off so that Maps can run faster." Some examples of missing features: 3D imagery and Earth view, showing your computer's location, setting home and work, searching nearby, measuring distances, coordinates, draggable routes, embedding maps, My Maps integration.

If you're in Lite mode, you'll see a box in the bottom left with a lightning bolt and this message: "You're in Lite mode." You can click: "Switch back to full Maps" if your browser supports it.

The Lite interface uses a hamburger-style menu, just like the mobile apps.

For now, the old Google Maps is still available if you use this link: www.google.com/lochp, but there's a message which says that "this version of Google Maps is updating soon".